


...But Your Team Mates Can Still Escape

by Zarla



Category: Left 4 Dead
Genre: Canon - Video Game, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Grief, Original Character Death(s), Self-Sacrifice, Suicide, Video Game Mechanics, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-04
Updated: 2010-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-11 07:58:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zarla/pseuds/Zarla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The realization hit her hard. She wasn't going to make it. She wasn't going to escape.<br/>But the others, the others would survive. She'd make sure of it. That was all that mattered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	...But Your Team Mates Can Still Escape

**Author's Note:**

> Set when they're Survivors, specifically on the Bridge finale of The Parish. If you've never played/seen it, it goes [something like this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fUlNa_eajs) (and it's harder than it looks here). This fic is just one ending out of many.  
> More information on them (and links to info on Jockey and Charger) [here](http://www.ashido.com/huntersmoker/).

"There's the chopper! Let's go!"

They were so close. The trek across the bridge had been an absolute nightmare - what felt like endless zombies blocking the way, clawing and biting and hanging on and pushing and shoving and screaming, and it seemed like it would never end. What had seemed a reasonable distance to traverse from their safe room proved to be anything but, but now it was almost over. It felt like it had taken an eternity to get this far, but the end was within sight. She could see the helicopter circling overhead, slowly settling down on the landing pad that was so close, so so close now, and she forced her flagging body onwards. She was bleeding from several places, limping badly, one of her shoulders aching and possibly dislocated but she didn't have time to do anything about it now. She had to keep moving, get to the helicopter, escape. They all had to escape. Healing could come later, but they had to get out of here first.

She was falling behind, unable to run as quickly as the others, but she was getting there and she wasn't alone. She was rarely ever alone - Hunter looked over her shoulder, saw that she was lagging behind, and as usual came to cover her.

"C'mon, slowpoke!" Hunter had a bruise beneath one eye from a zombie that had gotten too close to her before her machete could cut them down, and she had a broad unconscious smile of relief that the end was near. "We can't wait for you forever!"

Smoker coughed and tried to force her body to move faster, but she could only move so quickly when she was hurt this badly. It was hard to talk and limp at the same time, and she spoke with a slight wheeze. As it turned out, smoking a pack a day didn't give her the best endurance for this kind of thing, as Hunter was all too willing to remind her most of the time. "If you have any pills on you, now would be a good time."

"Sorry, you'll just have to get through it on your own." She was practically bouncing with energy, eager to leave the bridge and all its horrors behind them. "Come on, come on! It's almost here! We have to hurry!"

There was a roar behind them, the screams of hundreds of infected surging towards them, something huge and heavy thudding across the bridge. She heard the Tank before she saw it, roaring in rage as it made its way through the cars and crowd to reach them, and she heard the whistle of a chunk of concrete coming through the air towards her.

She turned, readied her rifle in hopes of maybe getting a few rounds off to deflect the rock, and instead she watched a car sail through the air directly for her.

Hunter didn't have time to yell out a warning, and Smoker had only the briefest moment to try and move out of the way and it wasn't enough. The car hit and scraped against the ground before slamming into her, shattering her legs instantly. It settled on top of her, trapping her from the waist down, before the pain registered, and then there was almost nothing else as her brain shrieked in agony.

Adrenaline forced her through it, kept her conscious, and she gritted her teeth and pushed at the car now pinning her to the ground, pointless but somehow she still had to try. She had to move it somehow, get it off, get up and...

The realization came suddenly and hit her just as hard. She was not going to make it.

She was not going to escape.

She felt hands slide under her arms, someone trying to pull her free and the shattered fragments of her bones scraped against each other and she struggled not to scream. If she started she might not ever stop.

"Come on, come on! We have to keep moving! Come on, get up!" Hunter shouted at her, her voice high and shaky. She kept pulling at her and it was making it worse, and Smoker made a high, strained sound in the back of her throat before choking it back.

"Stop it- not going- stop-" Speaking at all was an accomplishment when she was in this much pain, and she struggled to breathe through a throat that felt tighter by the moment. Over the frantic beating of her heart she could hear the incoming horde of infected charging towards them, the sound of the Tank coming closer. She wasn't going to make it.

But the rest of them, but Hunter, Hunter would make it. Smoker managed to move her arms, broad clumsy movements because subtlety was beyond her when she hurt this much, and she shoved Hunter's hands away. "Stop it, go, go without me, get out of here."

"What?" Quickly and a bit high-pitched, and Hunter grabbed her again. Smoker felt dizzy, lightheaded, and it was still difficult to breathe, and she wasn't going to make it but Hunter, Hunter had to make it. Hunter had to stay alive. The rest of them had to stay alive.

She heard the sound of a pistol firing from somewhere behind them, the shocked cries and screams of dying infected falling ahead of them. Reinforcements, the rest of their makeshift team come to try and help.

"Hunter, hurry!" Jockey called from somewhere behind them. "I can't hold 'em off forever! C'mon!"

"I'm not leaving you here!" Hunter shouted at Smoker, furious and she moved away from her and set her hands against the car, pushing with all her might. As strong as Hunter may have been, she couldn't lift an entire car by herself, and it stayed where it was. She made a strained, desperate noise and kept trying. "We're getting out of here, we're not dying here now-"

"_You're_ not dying here." Smoker rolled over as best she could, reached out to grab her fallen rifle and bit back the scream in her throat at moving her broken body. "I'll hold them off, go without me! Go!"

"No!" Hunter screamed at her, and when she looked at her she could see the faint shine of tears down her face amidst the streaks of blood and viscera, against the blue of the bruise beneath her eye. "I'm not leaving you here! I can-"

"My legs are broken!" Smoker shouted back at her, and she took a deep and shaky breath. "I'm not going anywhere."

"I can fix it- I'll carry you-"

"You don't have time. You don't have time!" Smoker shouted at her, and the horde was so close now and the blood loss and pain were making her woozy, and she pulled her pistol from her holster. "Get out of here now!"

"I'm not leaving you!" Hunter's voice cracked, and she began to reload her assault rifle. "I'm not leaving you here, we're almost there! We're almost there and I'm not letting you die here, I won't, I won't-"

"Hunter! Hunter, we have to move!" Charger was behind her now, angry and speaking quickly. "We're going to be overrun in a few seconds, we have to go _now_! The chopper won't wait!"

"I'm not leaving you!" Hunter screamed with all her strength, like that would change something, and Charger grabbed her arm and tried to pull her back. Hunter struggled against her, pulled her arm free and shoved Charger away and knelt back by Smoker's side. "I won't, I won't we're in this together, you said that, you and me and I won't, I won't-"

Smoker's vision was getting dimmer, and it hurt to breathe, and the pain was almost blinding, and she took her pistol and held it beneath her chin, her finger on the trigger. She gritted her words through clenched teeth in uneven gasps, her eyes tearing uncontrollably. "I will kill myself before I let you die for me. Get out of here, get to the chopper. Go!"

Hunter stared at her, betrayed and gasping and her tears kept falling, her mouth open and Charger grabbed her and pulled her to her feet and away.

"She's made her decision, Hunter! Let's go!"

"I won't- I can't-" Hunter said, but she didn't break away from Charger now. Smoker shut her eyes, struggled not to scream and let out a strange, wavering sound instead, and she forced herself through the pain to try and look around her. She felt around her hip, felt the molotov she'd been carrying and she unhooked it.

She wasn't going to escape, but the rest of them would. She was going to make sure of it.

"Smoker! Smoker, wait! Wait! I- I won't-" she heard Hunter scream from somewhere behind her, through a dim haze of growls and snarls and roars, and she grabbed her cigarette from where it had fallen and held it to the rag stuffed in the bottle. It went up in flames, and she threw it as hard as she could in what she hoped was the direction of the horde.

Sizzling, screaming, the rush of heat and flames and she saw a few bodies stumble near her and fall, smoking, what might have been the Tank through her darkening vision. It was getting harder and harder to breathe, like a great weight was pressing on her chest, and the pain was blocking out everything else.

She closed her eyes.

* * *

Hunter refused to run forward. She kept turning to look behind her, trying to see through the mass of bodies coming for them to where she'd left her friend. Charger kept her grip on her arm, held onto her, kept her going because Smoker wasn't going to have died for nothing.

"There it is! Come on!" Jockey was a little ahead, and she paused to throw a pipe bomb into the oncoming crowd. The shrill beeping caught the infected's attention, drew them away from their prey to go investigate, and it gave them some breathing room to run unhindered. It would be a brief respite, but it was a valuable one. The chopper wasn't that far away now, and they just had to make it and then they could get out of here, the army would take care of them. That was all that mattered now.

The pipe bomb exploded, sending a mist of blood and bits of viscera into the air, and the horde following them regrouped and refocused, howled for their blood. They were almost, almost there...

"We're going to make it!" Jockey said, her abnormally cheery tone almost frighteningly manic, like nothing had happened, like it was a sure thing. She leapt into the open back of the helicopter, skidded for a few seconds and turned around to hold her hands out to them. In those brief moments when she was standing still, Charger could see that her eyes were watering, tears running down her face and she was laughing hysterically.

There was no time to think, not at a time like this. All that mattered was surviving, and Charger clambered inside the helicopter next, dragging Hunter inside along with her. They were inside. They were safe.

Jockey grabbed her shoulders in apparent excitement for only a brief moment, unable to sit still or stop laughing, and she grabbed Hunter, almost shaking her for a few seconds and then almost hugging her, and then letting her go and rapidly looking between the two of them. In the midst of her hysterical laughter, Charger could just pick out fragments of a phrase, something she kept repeating over and over. "We made it, we made it, we made it!"

Hunter didn't react when Jockey touched her or grabbed her, didn't say anything, hadn't drawn or fired her weapon since Smoker had gone down. She was staring at nothing, eyes unfocused like she wasn't really there, and this wasn't good.

The helicopter jerked and lurched, slowly lifting off the ground, and Charger reluctantly let her go. Hunter didn't react when she did, even though Charger was sure she'd been holding onto her tightly enough to bruise.

"We did it! We did it!" Jockey was still laughing and it was breathless and intense like she couldn't stop, and she was still crying. She wasn't sure if Jockey was even aware that she was doing it. "We're okay! We're going to be okay!"

Charger wasn't sure which one of them to deal with first.

Hunter didn't say anything, didn't react to either of them. She stared without expression out the still open cargo door at the hordes below. They clustered below the helicopter, reaching out towards them and screaming hoarsely. A Tank, perhaps the same one that had hit Smoker with that car, was among them, slamming its fists into the ground and roaring with impotent rage.

Hunter stood and stared down at them through the open door, and despite the helicopter's slow and uneven ascent, she kept her balance perfectly.

"Don't worry, she'll be okay!" Jockey finally seemed to notice Hunter's state, and she was having trouble breathing and speaking at the same time, still giggling uncontrollably. She was shaking like a leaf, and she held out her hands to Hunter like she wanted a hug. Her voice cracked several times. "Smoker's fine! She's fine, she's fine, she's fine!" Like she was trying to convince herself, and her voice caught and choked for a second, and then she was laughing even harder although that had kind of sounded like a sob. "She's fine, we'll find her when we land! I bet you, she'll be there, don't worry, she's fine, I bet you anythin'! She'll be waiting for us, she's okay-"

Charger turned to her, set her hands on her shoulders and Jockey looked down at her, trembling and laughing. "Jockey, calm down and breathe. You're going to hyperventilate."

"She's fine, she's fine-"

"Jockey." Firmly, loudly, and she exerted some pressure to try and get Jockey to sit down. She resisted for a few seconds before sitting down hard, repeating the same thing over and over again. "Calm down. Breathe. Count your heart-rate. Calm down."

Jockey nodded, still laughing although it was growing softer, and she looked at the pedometer she kept on her right wrist, and it sounded less like she was laughing and more like she was crying now.

This was going to be hard for them, and she looked back at Hunter. She was still standing in the same place, staring down at the masses they'd left behind.

The helicopter was rising, and Hunter took a step forward.

"Hunter," Charger said, a warning. She heard Jockey gulp from the floor, her laughing/crying ceasing for once to be replaced with ragged breathing.

"Hunter?" she said, very weakly.

"I'm going to go back for her," Hunter said.

"Hunter, she's dead-" And she ignored Jockey's protests about that as she took a step towards her.

"I'm going back for her," Hunter said again, her voice even and emotionless.

"You can't go back, Hunter, she's dead. It's over." Charger took another step towards her. "They're going to blow the bridge, you heard them. If you go back now you'll just get yourself killed."

She held out a hand to her, to pull her back from the edge.

There was a brief moment where it seemed like Hunter was considering reason, and the ground below got farther away.

"I know."

And then Hunter jumped out of the helicopter, her arms outstretched.

"NO!"

Her hand missed her by only a small fraction, and Charger would have fallen out of the helicopter herself if Jockey hadn't caught her other arm and pulled her back. "Goddamn it, no!"

"Hunter!"

The two of them could only watch her helplessly. Hunter fell with practiced grace, like she'd done this a thousand times before. The slavering mass of infected beneath them screeched when she hit the ground, tucking and rolling expertly.

The cat ears of her sweatshirt bobbed up among the sea of hands and teeth for a few brief moments, and then she was gone.

The two of them stayed where they were, staring at the place where Hunter had disappeared, until Jockey tilted her head at Charger, her eyes wide and her smile broken.

"Don't worry, I bet she's okay," Jockey said, like Charger was the one who needed reassuring. Her voice was fluctuating wildly. "She was always gettin' right in the thick of things, y'know how she is. I bet she's found a way outta there already and is on her way to meet us, don't worry. She's fine, she's totally fine."

"Goddamn it, Hunter..." Charger stared at where she'd disappeared, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt this heavy and numb. Both of them at once... one of them would have been bad enough, but both of them... "She'd have killed you for doing that..."

"She's fine, she's fine!" Jockey patted her shoulder, and that frantic giggle was starting to work its way back into her voice. "We'll meet up with 'em in the next safe room and they'll be right as rain, bet you anythin'! They're tough like that, I know it. I know it, they're fine. They're both fine. Both of them. They're okay, like we're okay. We're all okay, we're all okay."

She was laughing again, repeating herself over and over, hysteria taking hold and Charger sighed heavily, put a hand on her shoulder again.

"Calm down and breathe, Jockey." Without the strength she had before, and it wasn't enough.

"They're fine, they're fine!" Jockey said, her voice getting louder and louder and she was almost shrieking with laughter, tears streaming down her face. "They're fine, they're fine, they're fine, we'll see them again, we'll see them again they're fine, they're fine..."

She'd have to focus to calm her down, snap her out of it, but before she did she needed a moment to herself, a moment before her team... what was left of her team's needs came first.

Charger pressed a hand over her eyes, and for a few brief seconds she let the heavy sadness of it reach her, a minute tremble through her forearm.

"I should have held on..."

An explosion rocked the area as the bridge below them exploded, the shriek of metal straining and falling apart almost deafening as it collapsed and fell into the sea.

They'd come so close.


End file.
